


The Season of Basking

by serephemeral



Category: Jackalope Wives Series - Ursula Vernon
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serephemeral/pseuds/serephemeral
Summary: Time went right on, as it tended to do, unbothered and unfussed. And so did Grandma: unbothered and only a little fussed. The sun rose and set, the moon waxed and waned, and the coyotes sang their eerie songs to the dark nights as the jackalope wives danced beneath the wide dome of the sky.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 19
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Season of Basking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twistedchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/gifts).



Time went right on, as it tended to do, unbothered and unfussed. And so did Grandma: unbothered and only a little fussed. 

Tomato season passed and the squash set fruit. The season of the moon looming large over the desert came and went. The sun rose and set, the moon waxed and waned, and the coyotes sang their eerie songs to the dark nights as the jackalope wives danced beneath the wide dome of the sky. 

* * *

The heat of the day had faltered and the stars had just begun to consider coming out. Grandma sat in her chair, rubbing a wrist absentmindedly as Eva talked over the news from town. Gossip from the town dance, chatter from parish services. Nothing to really prick up the ears at. 

_And thank blessed St. Anthony_ , thought Grandma. It had been a year to make the bones creak and the mind wonder how much more a body would take before something came loose or flew wild. And while it seemed the year had worn itself out on excitement and was ready to rest at last, there was no real counting on that. Anyone who had been around as long as Grandma and had any sense knew that when things feel like they are settling down is when they’re most liable to start up again. 

“Do you need some salve for that, Grandma?” The girl, who was delicate and sharp as a cactus thorn, offered her a tin.

“Well!” said Grandma, marking the small looks that passed between the girl and Eva. (Grandma was old, but she was keen, and she still knew how to catch a glance that wasn’t tossed at her. Particularly if it was a glance _about_ her. It was something you learned one way or the other when you were young and beautiful and becoming wise to the ways of men who mean no harm.) 

In another year such looks might have gotten her dander up. Now, they landed like a moonbeam on the sand: softer than they had any right to be and welcome in a way that pierces right down to the sinew. 

She’d spent a long time looking after herself and was inclined to be stubborn about it. She’d never quite known how to take her own baby girl growing up and beginning to take pains about her. It wasn’t the intention Grandma objected to, but the possibilities of what might happen if Eva ever got it into her head to take some sort of matters into her own hands. 

Taking matters into hands was Grandma’s job. And Eva took after her father: soft and amiable and thoroughly pleasant. The sort of creature the desert might swallow whole and never spit back out. 

It was just now occurring to Grandma that underneath the softness and the pleasantness there was a heat and gentle obstinacy, and that perhaps Eva had taken more after her than she’d realized. 

“Well,” she said. “I just might. You don’t miss a thing, do you?” 

The girl whose bones were the desert’s bones grinned. She handed grandma the tin. “I’m learning from the best.” Spook-cat, who had wound his way around the girl’s feet, purred in contentment. 

“The important news,” Eva said. “Is that I’ve had a note from your folks. Your great-grandmother has a mind to come visit.” 

_Lord Almighty._ Grandma almost said it aloud, but thought better of it as the girl’s eyes went wide with excitement. She and Eva had both taken quite a fondness to the child, and there was no use in the girl getting the wrong idea from an old lady’s exclamations. _Jesus, Mary, and Joseph_ , Grandma thought to herself. _The world has spun a good many times since the Mother of Trains was last here. When things settle down is just when they’re most liable to start up again!_

“About time” she said out loud. And then, to the girl: “Does Anna still hanker after saguaro blossom tea?” 

* * *

Anna arrived in the blazing heat of the afternoon. She sat up straighter than a woman her age had any right to as her mule plodded slowly toward the house. Her outline was faintly distorted, as if her form were drinking up the heat and sending it back to the sun. Like metal rails running through the sand.  
  
She wasn’t alone. 

At first Grandma thought one of her children or grandchildren had come along to look after her. A woman of Anna's age traveling some distance alone, even for a social call -- well, children would fuss to keep her company. (Even if she _was_ the Mother of Trains.) 

As they drew closer, Grandma realized she knew the woman on the mule next to Anna’s. It was not one of her children. Not even a grandchild. 

The woman’s name, Grandma knew, was Marguerite. 

_If it ain’t one thing it surely is another. So much for a nice quiet visit_ , thought Grandma, as Anna came up her steps and the girl whose bones were cholla ribs ran to hug her.

What she said out loud was: “Anna. Marguerite. Didn’t realize the two of you had met.” She gestured to the pot of saguaro blossom tea and the cups laid out on the porch table. “Can’t say I’m surprised, though. I’ll get an extra cup.”  
  
Grandma had intended to go fetch it herself, but the girl darted inside before she could get halfway to the door. She was back quicker than two thumps of a jackrabbit’s feet bearing another one of grandma’s blue-and-white patterned teacups.  
  
“Maggie Harken!” Anna grinned broadly. “You take to teaching well. Mighty glad to see it. And mighty obliged.” She inclined her head once, with great dignity, before taking a seat next to Grandma. “I didn’t set out to bring this one along, but it seems she found me at the right time. And I was glad of the company. She has the good sense to stay quiet when my children would chatter as bad as javelinas.”  
  
Grandma gestured to Marguerite, who was standing awkwardly next to the railing of the porch. “Sit a spell.” 

She looked well, Grandma thought. Well and hale. But she’d had herself an ordeal, and you could never quite tell what would come of such things. 

Marguerite did as Grandma said. There was a softness to the way she moved, a willowy quality to the woman that both belonged and did not belong in the desert. _Peculiar, this one. But ain’t we all?_

“There is silver in my tongue.” Marguerite’s voice was low and clear as a river running over stones. “I thought it was through when the cuff came out, but a few weeks later I felt it -- I can feel it inside now -- like echoes of him are somehow in there. I came to the Mother of Trains to see if she could take it out.”  
  
Anna sipped her tea and stroked her fingers through her granddaughter’s hair. Grandma arched an eyebrow at her as if to say _Well, you old steam engine, what do you make of it?_

“It’s in there, all right.” Anna rocked in her chair three times, then stopped. “Problem is, Maggie, it doesn’t want to come out for me. I mean, I _could_ do it. But it’s all wound up in her, and I’m afraid I’d do her more harm than good in the taking of it. I tried explaining, but --” She waved a wrinkled hand. “You’re better at explaining such things. Think I confused her.”  
  
“It’s true.” Marguerite chuckled. “I don’t quite understand the way of it. It feels like there are shards of metal in there, but they’re half-shadow, half-frost. Every time I speak I feel like I’m speaking through echoes of him. I already owe you everything, but I’d be mighty appreciative if you could…” She trailed off. 

“Hm.” Grandma cocked her head. She sniffed twice and sucked her teeth once for good measure. “Hm. Well, I ain’t _never_ known anything to come back that was eaten by a coyote. So I wouldn’t worry on that front.” 

Sometimes, in the coolest part of the night, when the jackalope wives came out of their burrows to begin tapping their feet to the tune of a sidewinder orchestra, Grandma would feel it. The echo of something deep within her, beneath her skin, echoing in her marrow. The coolness of the night air on bare flesh, the memory of being naked for the first time. Two large, human eyes staring into hers. The damned ordinary enchantment that was desire. The smell of smoke and the sting of fire on flesh. Old dreams burning. 

She sighed. How to explain it to the woman before her?  
  
“Sometimes a body holds on to what’s happened even when a mind wants to let it go. Sometimes it seeps into the heart and you wonder what in tarnation will get the memory out again. Thing is, it ain’t something I can take out for you. It’s something _you_ have to do, because only you can do it.”  
  
“How?” Marguerite asked. There was a soft resolve to her, a willow refusing to bend to a chill wind. 

Grandma smiled, but the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes were creased with an old sadness. “Time. Deciding every day to be a little bit more gentle with yourself than the day before. Knowing you’re stronger than his coldness and _believing_ it. The love of someone who’s good and warm and tender when you least expect it.”  
  
“Time,” Anna echoed.  
  
Marguerite nodded again. “Time…” she said, breathing out a deep breath.

“We’ll be here passing it with you, if you like.” _Mary_ , _Mother of Mothers,_ Grandma thought to herself, _I_ am _getting soft_. 

The moment hung heavy in the dry air before a small, unexpected voice joined in. “Bask in the sun,” said the cholla-bone girl, sounding as if she came from under the sand and above it and spoke with its millions of tiny little grains as a chorus in her voice. “It wants to warm you.” 

The girl extended her hand to Marguerite. Marguerite hesitated for a moment, then joined her large hand with the girl’s small one, and together they walked into the desert. 

* * *

  
Time went right on, as it tended to do, and so did Grandma. The season of the moon looming large passed into the season of basking and the cholla-bone girl danced in the desert in the noonday heat as Spook-cat watched. 

One particular morning Eva arrived with an envelope.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, don’t let it be any more excitement!” barked Grandma, who was peeling potatoes in her kitchen.  
  
The envelope had a certain odd weight to it. Grandma wiped her potato-knife on a towel and then slipped it beneath the seal. She shook the envelope into her hand and three small, round pieces of metal fell into her palm. 

“Huh,” said Grandma. “Never seen that before.” 

“Really?” said Eva mildly. “There’s a note, Mama.” 

Grandma fished it out. 

“ _Basked in the sun. It warmed me. Thought you might like these souvenirs as ammunition for that shotgun of yours on the slim chance the coyote’s dinner disagrees with him. Please give She- Who-Speaks-With-The-Desert my thanks. -M.”_ _  
__  
_“Well, I’ll be.” Grandma said, sounding both prouder and more amazed than she meant to. She dropped the small metal balls into her pocket, scratched Spook-cat behind his ears, and looked out the window. The cholla-bone girl was sitting on the warm sand beyond the garden, staring at the cactuses and wide, blue sky.

She plunked herself down in a kitchen chair and fixed her daughter with an appraising look. “I think it’s time I told you about how I learned to dance.”  
  
And as Eva smiled, more gently than she had any right to -- as if she’d been waiting for this moment for years -- Grandma felt something shake free in her spirit and go bounding, out into the desert and across the mesas and up, up, up until it touched the dome of sky. 

For the first time in a long time, she felt in her bones that all was well. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Dearest Yuletide Recipient, 
> 
> It has been such a delight to dream up this story for you. I dearly love the world Ursula Vernon has spun in the Jackalope Wives series and have had such fun playing in her sandbox and spending time with these characters. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to write this story, and may you have a very merry Yuletide season! <3


End file.
